Come Over
by WordsObsessed
Summary: I can't take it much longer, I realise, nursing a crystal tumbler of amber liquid one night in the drawing room. The more I have of her means the more I want her, despite the burning – the burning inside me that rages when I'm without her, and the burning longing that consumes me when I'm with her. Sooner or later I know she'll destroy me.


**A/N: this was inspired by Kenny Chesney's **_**Come Over – **_**yes, the same artist who inspired **_**Somewhere With You. **_**I'm a country music lover. Don't judge ;)**

I'm losing my mind in this house – this big, dirty, hollow house. With The Order gone I'm rattling around inside it, slowly going stir crazy. Well, absolutely, totally, wholeheartedly batshit crazy – let's not muck around here. I get visitors, obviously, but they're far less frequent than I'd like. Moony stops by every Friday and that's the highlight of my week – other than when she does. Then it's _hello kitten, _and Moony is booted down to Second Favourite Visitor Of The Week without a second thought.

But work keeps her so depressingly busy her visits are infrequent, at best. Sometimes I go for months without seeing her and descend into a permanent cloud of sourness that even Moony can't shift. He doesn't know why, obviously. Nobody does. Actually, perhaps Harry does, after that time he caught me necking a bottle of firewhiskey just minutes after we'd both walked in on her making full use of a bunch of mistletoe with Oliver Wood – although I think he was too caught up in the fact that there was no liquor left for him to burn the image out of his mind with to think that I had different motivations to him.

She knows she's welcome here of course, and Harry and Ron say that they see just as little of her as I do. I think the one who sees most of her is Malfoy, the smarmy little arse, as they both work in the same department of the Ministry. There was a period when everyone had bets on whether he'd become her latest conquest as it seemed that all she ever spoke of, to anyone and everyone, was _Draco. _

"Oh Sirius, I must tell you what _Draco _said today… Harry, do you know what _Draco _told me today… Ron, you should ask _Draco _about that…''

To everyone's relief though, _Dramione, _as the twins had dubbed them, never seemed to materialise – I like to think it was the bombardment of luxurious bouquets of flowers I anonymously sent her daily for six months which finally put him off, but I never found out for sure. Well, my mother's money had to be squandered somehow…

A year on, and no more chatter about her romantic liaisons has reached me. Whenever she pops round, it's on her own, and she never mentions having any admirers, a lover, a boyfriend. I cling to this. For her to tell me that she's found her forever with some other man would destroy me – or at least, it would destroy my liquor cabinet, and my liver, which would then destroy me in approximately… ooh, say seventeen hours? At a push.

Damn my high tolerance.

§

It's 2am when I receive an owl from her – I'm brooding in the kitchen over reports of neo-Death Eaters rising in the Midlands. Apparently the belief shared amongst my circle that this world has seen enough pain and grief and cruelty for several lifetimes is not universal. So the perky tapping of Maia's beak against the glass pane of the back door is a welcome distraction – I let her in and she lands on my shoulder, affectionately nuzzling my cheek.

"Hello kiddo," I say to the bird, untying the scroll. "Long flight?"

She hoots softly.

"Well that's nice. Where's our favourite girl?"

Her beak taps the scroll and she looks at me expectantly; I roll my eyes and fall heavily back into my chair to read her message – then frown at its contents.

_S,_

_I need a place to stay – I'm desperate. Please don't tell me no. I promise I'll explain._

_H._

Maia hoots again. I grab a quill and splash it into an inkpot, silently praising Moony for losing the contents of his pockets to our last game of muggle poker, and scrawl a reply.

_Come over. _

_S._

§

I peek into her bedroom the next morning; she's dead to the world, her usually neat hair tumbled around and over her face as she snores softly. I chuckle and shut the door – she won't be rising for a while.

I while away the morning in the library, deciding to put my lazy butt to use and dig out those books Moony's being going on about for the last year. The Hogwarts library is the largest in the country but apparently Grimmauld Place's still holds some books not found anywhere else in Europe. Merlin bless my father and his fondness for ancient first editions – albethey of illegal authors and instruction manuals of incredibly dubious spells.

It's sitting in my favourite winged leather chair surrounded by these old books that she finds me just after midday – I doubt she's ever woken this late before in her entire life: her expression is one of amusing disorientation.

"Morning kitten," I say cheerfully. "Feeling better?"

She nods wanly and shuffles forward; my smile fades. I've never seen her this downtrodden before. She didn't explain to me what prompted her flight last night; she'd simply appareted into my kitchen and, after hugging me tightly, fled up the stairs and shut herself in her bedroom. I'd presumed it was boyfriend trouble, but looking at her now, curling into the softest armchair in the room, perhaps I'd been wrong. I put the book in my hands to one side and lean back, looking at her with concern. The girl seems truly wretched.

"What's wrong?"

She looks at me with those big brown eyes, and they begin to fill with tears.

"I can't go back to work."

"Why… why not?!"

I'm bewildered – she _loves _her job. Lives for it. Even when she was sick enough to be hospitalised last year, she was sending owls from her sick bed. Stupid, brilliant girl.

"Draco… Draco…" Oh _fuck_. It is boyfriend trouble. "He told everyone, well, I don't know if you knew… He, well, he told everyone that we… we were sleeping together last year."

Her face flushes crimson as she speaks; clearly confessing to sex with the one-time enemy is not as light-hearted a matter as being caught in a Christmas kiss with Oliver – but _fuck._ She _had _been sleeping with him. All those flowers… _fuck it. _My teeth grind but I try to keep my face calm as I speak.

"So… how does that stop you doing your job?"

"Because it's humiliating!" she cries, standing up and flinging the cushion she'd been hunched over to the floor. "I tried to convince everyone that I was the ultimate professional, and he just _ruins everything_!"

"This is Malfoy we're talking about, darling," I say reasonably, even as fury pounds in my ears at the thought of that ferret kissing her, touching her, undressing her… _no. _"He was never the epitome of trustworthiness."

She growls and flings herself back into her chair.

"I know _that _but I thought it'd damage his reputation as much as mine – and I know why he's done it. Kingsley's lined me up for a promotion and not him, and he thinks he'll get it if my image isn't spotless. Well _fuck him."_

The tears have dried in her eyes and given way to fire – she seems to crackle with energy now that she's got the apparent shame of confessing out of the way; although she should be only too aware, from all the late night tales Moony and I would regale her with of our time at school, that sex is the last thing I'd be ashamed about. _Half the girls in our year had been beneath his covers by the time we left school, and the other half had had him beneath their covers, _he remembered Moony saying. Something which wasn't _entirely_ true… but near enough true.

"Yes _fuck him_," I agree. "Although, not actually, because that wouldn't exactly help your predicament right now."  
>She picks up her cushion and hurls it at me – I catch it lazily in one hand and a smile plays around her lips. Good. I much prefer this kitten to the desolate one of five minutes ago.<p>

"Sweetness, just write to Kingsley and tell him that you fail to see how Malfoy's slanderous gossiping is able to impact your career – and really, he should be the one who is disciplined for his unprofessional attitude. With any luck, you'll be boosted up the pay scale and he'll be shunted into the Muggle Liason Office or something equally dire."

A slow smile spreads across her face.

"I will."

§

She seems to come over a lot more after that night I gave her refuge. She did as I advised and was, as expected, given a hefty promotion – it seemed that the entire Ministry was rather amused and gladdened by the news that Harry Potter's Golden Girl was a little less perfect than she seemed.

So she takes heart and begins to let her hair down a little bit more – she even makes it a rule to leave work before midnight, which leads to me enjoying her company just a little bit more frequently. One notable benefit of this is Moony getting off my back about finding a hobby, or even, Merlin forbid, a _job, _because – according to him – I'm not _climbing the walls _anymore.

But I can't take it much longer, I realise, nursing a crystal tumbler of amber liquid one night in the drawing room. The more I have of her means the more I want her, despite the burning – the burning inside me that rages when I'm without her, and the burning longing that consumes me when I'm with her. Sooner or later I know she'll destroy me. Not having her is killing me but I only want _her_ – I'm no good for anyone else. Fuck knows I've _tried, _my entire past is filled with trying to find that one girl I could give my forever to – but really, no one else was ever even a candidate since I met that skinny, bushy-haired thirteen year old. I didn't know it then of course – Merlin she was only a child – but now it's clear to me. It was only ever her. It only ever can be her.

I send her an owl.

_Hermione. Come over._

**A/N: let me know what you think so far! Much love to you all x**


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